The George Eastman show, made up of the work of more than 50 photographers from all eras in the history of photography, includes landscape photography greats such as Ansel Adams, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Imogen Cunningham, John K. Hillers, Philip Hyde, William Henry Jackson, the Kolb Brothers, Eadweard J. Muybridge, Eliot Porter, Bradford Washburn, Carleton E. Watkins, Edward Weston and Minor White, as well as a good number of other renowned photographers who also happened to make exposures in the National Parks such as George Eastman, Andreas Feininger, Lee Friedlander, Johan Hagemeyer, Martin Parr, Stephen Shore, Garry Winogrand and others. The exhibition has also turned out to be one of the most popular and prominent museum shows of the year.

Fascinating, Well-Written and Leavened With Significant Detail

Like her pre-show introductory article in Antiques magazine, assistant Curator Jamie M. Allen’s main essay in the book is well written, smooth flowing and easy to read, yet packed with interesting history of both the national parks and early photography in them. The rest of the book displays the photographs with titles and an accompanying text for each of the featured photographers, interspersed with several paragraphs at a time on various historically relevant points such as the invention of the mass produced Kodak camera, the increase in availability of the automobile, the development of photomechanical and photolithographic postcards for sale at park concessions, 18-by-60-foot Colorama photo advertisements for the national parks, caretakers in the national parks and the National Park Service’s social media campaign #findyourpark.

Interspersed with the images from each major contributor at approximately every 16 pages, a timeline page provides the reader with significant dates in the history of photography and the history of the national parks. These timeline pages are loaded with fascinating tidbits that enrich the reading experience of the book. Despite many details included, the timelines present history in general, broad strokes. There are significant points of history, especially of the parks that are not detailed, but this would require a much larger, more difficult to read book.

A Popular Populist Approach

Ms. Jamie M. Allen approaches her subject from a populist perspective, which is somewhat unusual for a museum curator. More than one of the reviews of Picturing America’s National Parks said it was a comprehensive history of photography in the national parks. This is partly true, depending on the definitions of these terms. On a more close reading though, I would say that this volume is not necessarily the history of fine art photography or landscape photography in the national parks, but it could more accurately be described as the history of all photography in the national parks, or a history of cameras and images of any kind from any source made in the national parks.

This populist view of photography in the national parks puts significant emphasis on the various ways that photographs have helped to establish, preserve, depict and popularize the national parks. Allen observes that the history of the national parks is inextricably intertwined with the history of photography. After reading this inspiring book, I would go beyond saying that photography helped popularize the national parks to say that apparently the national parks helped popularize photography. In the development of the West, Allen points out that images produced on location at several of the most popular parks such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite became a hot commodity. A cottage industry in photograph sales developed with photographers establishing small shops where tourists could purchase various types of photographic reproductions of the scenery they had enjoyed during their visit and in some cases purchase photos of themselves in the scenery.

Intertwining Histories of National Parks and Photography

The development of postcards, the snapshot camera and many other aspects of photography that were popular rather than professional, were a large part of the story of the intertwining histories. In addition these aspects make a more interesting read than a mere compilation of the great photographers who have depicted the national parks. Because some of the professionals have been left out, the collection of photographs represented acts less as a survey of those famous for photographing the parks and more as a compilation of famous people and ordinary people who also made images in the national parks.

Both the exhibition and the book tie all of this history into current trends by bringing to light the masses of images and selfies made each day and shared hourly on social media. However, Allen and the Eastman Museum go beyond the mere mention of this phenomenon, to incorporating it as an activity at the exhibit. In the entryway to the show a photograph of the Grand Canyon containing a life-sized figure of George Eastman standing on the rim gives visitors to the show an opportunity to make a selfie with Mr. Eastman and the Grand Canyon in the background to take home, share on social media and discuss the exhibit with friends online. This feature and the encouragement of phone snapshots in the museum makes the visitor experience more fun while portraying the museum as cool and up to date in their delivery of history, not to mention making the show and the museum extremely popular, as well as the objects of considerable buzz.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Allen and her team are to be commended for their fanning of the media flames through her appearance on local TV and the comprehensive development of publicity across the country, but also in their exhaustive and colossal volume of research necessary for such a project. As excellent as done, their research was not necessarily perfect, or perhaps for sake of simplicity and accessibility they chose to leave some information out. For example: the timeline for the 1960s is missing the introduction of color to photography books. Though the timelines are a small part of the overall book presentation, this was a major breakthrough for the parks, for photography and for the fortunes of Kodak because it caused a huge spike in the popularity of color film. It also was part of what led to the popularization of the coffee table photography book, which changed the face of the photography industry and paved the way for more photographers to make a living in the medium.

In the timelines, there is also no mention of the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series, which during the 1960s, especially in the Western U.S., but also all over the world, greatly advanced the momentum of the movement to conserve more public lands and to further popularize the national parks themselves. The timeline entry for 1963 mentioned that David Brower and Eliot Porter published several books on the parks, but the mention of popular books by Philip Hyde in the Exhibit Format Series, who is represented in the Eastman Museum collection, also is omitted. David Brower called Philip Hyde his go-to photographer because he produced the images for many books that made or protected national parks just in the 1960s alone, such as The Last Redwoods (1963), Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon (1964), The Wild Cascades: Forgotten Parkland (1965), Not Man Apart (1965) Navajo Wildlands (1967), The Grand Colorado (1969) and even more volumes in the 1970s.

Philip Hyde’s book, Island In Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula (1962) was the first book to ever raise funds to purchase land to make a national park service unit, Point Reyes National Seashore. It was also published the same year as Eliot Porter’s In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World, (also not mentioned in Picturing America’s National Parks) in 1962, giving both books the shared title of the first major book projects published in color.

Outstanding Image Choice and the Making of an Evergreen Title

I like Allen’s image choices for the sections on Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Minor White and many of the others because she used photographs we don’t often see from these well-known masters. Adams as usual gets a huge amount of credit for his work in the national parks, most of which is well-deserved. However, also as usual, Adams gets credit for some of the accomplishments of other photographers such as the help in conservation and formation of national parks, which Adams did do some and quite effectively, but not more than or even at the same level as photographers such as Philip Hyde and Eliot Porter, who essentially took over the Sierra Club Books from Ansel Adams after they transitioned to color. The description under Ansel Adams carried on at length about conservation and the national parks, whereas the Philip Hyde description mentioned it only briefly, especially in light of his much greater volume of work on wilderness and national park protection campaigns. When I asked Allen about the difference, she said that originally her text included much more about Philip Hyde’s work in preserving national parks, but that her editors cut some of it. Apparently editors need educating as well about the figures behind major conservation efforts.

To illustrate this point and to show an example of how the descriptions were presented, here is the entry for Ansel Adams:

Ansel Adams‘ (American, 1902-1984) lifelong passion for the national parks began in 1916 when, at the age of 14, he read James Mason Hutching’s 496-page book In the Heart of the Sierras (1886) and convinced his parents to take him on vacation to Yosemite Valley. Equipped with a No. 1 Brownie camera that his parents had given him, Adams took his first images of Yosemite that year. Soon after, he became involved with the Sierra Club, starting as the custodian for the club’s headquarters in Yosemite and later leading tours and participating in trips to the Yosemite High Country. He was eventually elected to the board of directors and lobbied for additional areas to be set aside as national parks and monuments. By the 1930s, Adams’ photographic work had become well known, and in 1941 he was invited to participate in a project to photograph all the national parks. Organized by the Secretary of Interior, the initiative was abruptly cancelled when the United States entered World War II. Adams continued the project independently, supported by a series of Guggenheim Fellowships. His images of the parks have come to represent the grandeur of the American landscape, conjuring a sense of pride for American viewers in both the land itself and the preservation of these spaces through the National Park Service. Adams’ photographs have also had broad international appeal, establishing the national parks as globally recognizable icons.

Compare that to the entry for Philip Hyde, which is also excellent, but not as thorough:

In 1946, Philip Hyde (American 1921-2006) became one of the first students to attend the newly formed photography program at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Here he studied under Edward Weston, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, and many other influential photographers of the time. After graduating, Hyde served as the official photographer of the Sierra Club High Trip during the summer of 1950, thus beginning his long relationship with the organization. His involvement with the club blossomed into relationships with other groups, including the Wilderness Society and the National Audubon Society. Hyde’s photographic work was used to advocate for and realize the preservation of places such as the Grand Canyon. While he photographed the characteristic vantages of many national parks, his images also show atypical views, such as a sand dune at the Grand Canyon.

Regardless, even with some omissions, Picturing America’s National Parks is destined to be a staple of bookstores, libraries, schools and universities for many years to come. I like the accessibility of the approach, the innovative layout and the depth of information presented in an easy to digest format. I like the cover art, but don’t particularly like the no dust-jacket cover. However, this keeps the costs down also adding to accessibility. Besides, this type of jacketless cover will likely prove ideal when the book is used as a textbook. It certainly ought to be mandatory reading for anyone studying photography, the national parks or any related outdoor curriculum.

Below is the next in a series of excerpts from the only known existing complete student lecture notes from the photography program at the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. During the “Golden Decade” while Minor White was lead instructor, beginning in the Ansel Adams Summer Session 1946, Philip Hyde kept a detailed record of class presentations.

For the California School of Fine Arts Summer Session 1946, Ansel Adams brought in Minor White from Columbia University on recommendation from Beaumont and Nancy Newhall. In the 1946 Summer Session Minor White quickly proved himself as a coach of the young students and as a guest lecturer. Within a few weeks Ansel Adams felt confident enough in Minor White’s teaching abilities to leave him in charge of the class and set out on the road to photograph the national parks for his recently awarded Guggenheim Fellowship.

Today, the San Francisco Art Institute still has one of the world’s most cutting edge photography departments, however, in 1945-1955, the first ten years of the program made history as Minor White brought in Imogen Cunningham, Lisette Model, Dorothea Lange, and many other luminaries to guest lecture. Each semester Minor White also took the students on numerous field trips, the highlight of which was a visit to Wildcat Hill in Carmel to discuss the art and craft of photography, look at prints by Edward Weston and photograph with him out on Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.

Ansel Adams first taught the Summer Session in 1945. In the summer of 1946, Minor White joined him as a teacher and at the same time, Philip Hyde joined them as an early student. Due to an office paperwork error, Philip Hyde did not start in the first full-time class in 1946, but started in the second full-time class in the Fall of 1947. The extra year on the waiting list did not go to waste, however as Philip Hyde also used his G. I. Bill Veteran’s education benefits at U. C. Berkeley to take a number of art and design courses, including classes by the famous Japanese-American painter Chiura Obata. By this lecture in August 1947, Hyde had just been married to Ardis King in June of 1947, whom he met at a New Year’s party in San Francisco at the end of 1945 and got to know in the year at U. C. Berkeley before he attended the full-time photography program in the Fall of 1947. Philip Hyde’s notes quoted below are from a lecture where Ansel Adams outlined the Summer Session and Fall Full-Time 1947 program courses, lab schedule and supplies needed.

Philip Hyde’s Lecture Notes—August, 1947

Each student will be in a conference group for attending museum and lecture events.

Interesting how many large format film photography supplies are now replaced by electronics and computers… Any thoughts on traditional processes, darkroom printing, art schools or another aspect of these notes?

(Continued in the blog post San Francisco Art Institute Photography History 18.)

Exhibition at the Booth Western Art Museum

Over 400 People Attended the SOLD OUT Opening Reception…

In 2010, the second largest museum in Georgia, the Booth Western Art Museum, hosted an exhibition called Ansel Adams: A Legacy. This show attained a new milestone in attendance and helped the Booth establish creative photography as an important part of its future with the associated creation of the Booth Photography Guild.

The Booth Western Art Museum, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute Museums in Washington DC, now presents a new exhibition, Ansel Adams: Before and After, which has already set new precedents in several ways. The outside marketing and publicity by photographers, galleries and other associates for Ansel Adams: Before and After was dark for the first 30 days. The Booth wanted to see how its own community would respond to museum originated outreach.

From the show text:

Exhibition Opening Reception and Lecture SOLD OUT!
On Saturday, November 14, 2015, over 400 people sat in awe of Dr. Michael Adams, son of legendary photographer, Ansel Adams, as he gave the keynote speech for the opening of Ansel Adams: Before and After. Many of the attendees had the opportunity to hear from contemporary photographers Cara Weston and Bob Kolbrener, who are both highlighted in the exhibition.

The Booth Western Art Museum sold $10.00 tickets to the show opening and could not fit any more people into the facility. The Booth written materials also refer to Ansel Adams as the most recognized name in photography. Ansel Adams is not only the most recognized name in photography, but the most recognized western photographer in Georgia and other southern and eastern states. The new Booth show is helping to change that though because besides exhibiting more than 25 original photographs by Ansel Adams, the more than 100 total works in the show “represent 24 photographers who influenced Ansel Adams, worked at the same time as his peers, or are contemporary artists and professional image makers who have been influenced by his legacy.”

The Influence of Ansel Adams

Ansel Adam’s influence on the entire medium of photography continues to show up in imagery today. Furthermore, those who worked with him cite him as one of their most significant influences. Having co-founded with Beaumont Newhall the world’s first photography department in a major museum at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and having founded the first photography department in an art school to teach creative photography as a full-time profession at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute, Ansel Adams with more students than any other photographer in history, has influenced photography more than any other single photographer.

The exhibition also shows how photographers influenced by Ansel Adams, such as Philip Hyde, have influenced others. Ansel Adams was a teacher of teachers. “Aspens, San Miguel River, Rocky Mountains, Colorado” by Philip Hyde shows Ansel Adams’ influence, while “Spot Lit Trees II, Yosemite, California” by Robert Weingarten is reminiscent of Philip Hyde’s aspen image. Considering that Philip Hyde led some of the earliest color Ansel Adams Workshops and Robert Weingarten participated as a student and a teacher in his own right with the Ansel Adams Workshops, these and other influences had plenty of fertile opportunities to develop.

How Modernism Began in Photography

Curators and art critics have called Edward Weston the father of modern photography. As co-founder of Group f64 with Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Dorothea Lange, also part of the current Booth exhibit Ansel Adams: Before and After, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams were the spiritual leaders of the group whose members found themselves all moving away from pictorialism around the same time in the early 1930s. In the early part of the 20th Century, photographers practicing pictorialism using various techniques in lighting and soft focus and other effects to make photographs look like paintings with the intent that photography would be accepted as art and shown in museums and galleries.

With the striking example of the clean, crisp, sharp focused throughout, naturally lit images of Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz vocally abandoned pictorialism and embraced realism. He had the financial resources and influence in the arts to support like-minded photographers like those in Group f64 in California. Group f64, Stieglitz and Strand pioneered the modernist aesthetic in photography. Nature, natural objects, simple nudes, scenes of everyday life and people portrayed as they were found became the subjects and these were given space to breathe in compositions. Photography trailed behind some of the other arts in transitioning to modernism, but Encyclopedia Britannica defines well the rise of this revolution in the arts overall:

Modernism in the arts is a radical break with the past and the concurrent search for new forms of expression. Modernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the 19th to the mid-20th Century, particularly in the years following World War I. In an era characterized by industrialization, rapid social change, and advances in science and the social sciences, Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and convention. New ideas in psychology, philosophy and political theory kindled a search for new modes of expression.

Photographs on Display in the Show

Ansel Adams: Before and After progresses chronologically through the work of Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Group f64, then later contemporaries and early protégés of Ansel Adams such as Brett Weston, Cole Weston, Philip Hyde, Pirkle Jones, Al Weber, Bob Kolbrener and Brett Weston’s daughter Cara Weston, who knew Ansel Adams growing up. Finally, contemporary photographers in the show who were influenced by Ansel Adams include Robert Weingarten, Julieanne Kost, Rex Naden, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Peter Essick, John Mariana, Jay Dusard, Tim Barnwell and others. The exhibition contains two to four photographs by each photographer.

The three photographs in the show by Philip Hyde are “Aspens, San Miguel River, Rocky Mountains, Colorado,” “Great Overhang, Moqui Canyon, Glen Canyon, Utah” and “Marble Gorge, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona,” all by courtesy of Lumiere Gallery. Philip Hyde made “Great Overhang, Moqui Canyon” in 1964, the year Glen Canyon Dam began to back up “Lake” Powell. “Marble Gorge, Grand Canyon” appeared in the book Navajo Wildlands in the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series, started by Ansel Adams, Nancy Newhall and David Brower, that popularized the coffee table photography book. This series more than any other photography books, exhibited the new look of modernism in photography and helped in the campaigns to make many of America’s national parks.

Welcome to the Booth Western Art Museum

The Booth Western Art Museum is the ideal venue for Ansel Adams: Before and After, offering plenty of space for such an overwhelmingly popular show and accompanying series of lectures. Besides the SOLD OUT Opening Reception and Lecture, on Saturday January 9, 2016, the Booth will host a Workshop and Evening Lecture with on how Ansel Adams might have used Photoshop. On Saturday, January 23, 2016, contemporary photographers featured in the exhibition will participate in a Symposium with Scholars. Details of the four sessions of this event are below.

The Booth Western Art Museum, opened in August 2003, is the only museum of its kind in the Southeast. With its 120,000 square foot building, The Booth houses the largest permanent exhibition space for Western American art in the country. Permanent galleries include: American West Gallery, Cowboy Gallery, Face of the West, Heading West, The Modern West, Sagebrush Ranch, James and Carolyn Millar Presidential Gallery, War is Hell, and a two-story Sculpture Court. There is also a Temporary Exhibition Gallery, a Special Exhibition Gallery and the Bergman Theatre Lobby Gallery, as well as two theaters, a café, a ballroom, museum store, a reference library and one of only two glass elevators in the country with historical balance weights.

The Golden Decade Book in Pre-Production at Steidl in Germany

Original limited edition printing design of The Golden Decade. Gerhard Steidl already redesigned the book, fonts and colors with a more contemporary art book layout and look.

The Golden Decade: California School of Fine Arts Photography 1945-55 by Ira Latour, Cameron Macauley and Bill Heick, edited by Ken Ball and Victoria Whyte Ball, sold out in two special oversize limited editions of 100 books each in 2010. In conjunction with the release of the book, Smith Andersen North Gallery held a two-month exhibit of original darkroom silver prints by 36 students of Ansel Adams and Minor White.

Now The Golden Decade will be published by world-premier art book publisher Steidl of Germany and is in pre-production. Ken and Victoria Whyte Ball recently traveled to Gottingen, Germany for the beginning of pre-production to work with Gerhard Steidl on the layout and design of the book. The production process with a master art publisher such as Steidl, Ken and Victoria said has been fascinating, besides, the Balls had fun in Steidlville getting to know the other photographer teams and curators also putting books together including Joshua Chuang from the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona and Anna Davidson, daughter of New York Magnum photographer Bruce Davidson. Follow the Ball’s adventures in Germany and the Golden Decade journey into print at a delightful blog Victoria has been writing called the Golden Decade Blog, supplemented by Victoria Whyte Ball’s Facebook page.

During the first 10 years of the photography program founded by Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts, now called the San Francisco Art Institute, Minor White was lead instructor. He invited Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Lisette Model and other definers of 20th Century photography to be guest instructors.

The Golden Decade Book author Ira Latour was in the first full-time class of the photography department, while Bill Heick was in the second class with Victoria Whyte Ball’s father Don Whyte, Philip Hyde and 12 other students. Cameron Macauley was in a later class. The authors and a large number of other contributors including David Leland Hyde share stories and biographical sketches from the early days of West Coast Photography when the earliest students of straight photography started journeys in the medium, many of which went on to notable publishing and exhibiting achievements of their own.

Update: You can now pre-order the Golden Decade from Amazon with a guaranteed savings of $24.09 off the regular retail of $75. The pre-order guaranteed price is 33 percent off at $50.09. To pre-order click The Golden Decade.

“Philip Hyde: Mountains And Deserts” Exhibit, SFO Museum

If you are flying into or out of San Francisco International Airport, (SFO) and you are traveling via Southwest, US Airways, Delta, AirTran or Alaska Airlines, you will have the opportunity to see a museum installed exhibition of Philip Hyde’s photographs in Terminal One. The show called, “Philip Hyde: Mountains and Deserts,” will hang from now in February through April 2015.

The SFO Museum, which puts on over 40 exhibitions a year in all four of SFO’s terminals, is the only accredited museum in an airport in the US, said Curator of Exhibitions, Ramekon O’Arwisters. The SFO Museum displays a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions, as well as the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, which houses a permanent collection dedicated to preserving the history of commercial aviation. The SFO Museum also exhibits color images and prints, but it tends to specialize more in black and white photography of note.

The SFO Museum has shown such distinguished black and white photographers as Carleton E. Watkins, Edward S. Curtis, Imogen Cunningham, Wynn Bullock, Fan Ho, Fred Lyon, Michael Kenna, John Sexton and many others. The museum has also exhibited the work of a number of Golden Decade photographers, photographers who studied under Ansel Adams and Minor White in the first 10 years after World War II of the burgeoning art scene of San Francisco. To discover more about this period, see the blog post, “The Golden Decade: Photography At The California School Of Fine Arts.” The SFO Museum specializes in giving high quality artwork a large exposure. To learn more about the SFO Museum, visit its Mission and History. The Philip Hyde exhibition is beyond gate security and therefore can typically only be seen by those with a boarding pass, but the show will enjoy a high volume of traffic located in Terminal One.

To curate the show, Mr. O’Arwisters asked me to put together a selection consisting only of horizontal 16X20 original Philip Hyde black and white silver prints. From these he chose 12 prints for the final show. Within the constraints of only horizontal images and fitting the Mountains and Deserts theme, some of the final selection prints are original silver prints and some are photographer authorized archival chromogenic prints. The SFO Museum, then, with matting, framing and horizontally oriented prints produced a consistent look and presentation, complete with a biographical description of the artists career and approach to photography written by O’Arwisters. You can see a preview of the show and description online at the SFO Museum “Philip Hyde: Mountains And Deserts.”

No other known set exists of complete student lecture notes from the first ten years of the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. During the “Golden Decade,” directly after World War II, while Minor White was lead instructor, beginning in the Summer Session 1947, Philip Hyde took detailed class notes. These notes are what make up the core of a good number of entries in this series of blog articles on the history of the San Francisco Art Institute’s photography department.

Background And Founding Of The World’s First Professional Creative Photography Training

Minor White and Philip Hyde both attended their first Ansel Adams lecture on the same day at the start of the California School of Fine Arts Summer Session 1946. Ansel Adams brought in Minor White with the idea he would take Ansel Adams’ place as lead instructor. Minor White came directly from Columbia University on Beaumont and Nancy Newhall’s recommendation. In the 1946 Summer Session Minor White quickly proved himself as a coach of the young students and as a guest lecturer. Within a few weeks Ansel Adams felt confident enough in Minor White’s teaching abilities to leave him in charge of the class and set out on the road to photograph the national parks for his recently awarded Guggenheim Fellowship.

That Fall, Minor White also led the first class of full-time students in the world’s first academic full-time creative photography program. By Fall of 1947, a new crop of first year students began learning from Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts, renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961. The San Francisco Art Institute still has one of the world’s most innovative photography departments, but the first ten years of the program, now called the Golden Decade, are the stuff of legend with guest lectures arranged by Minor White that included such photographic luminaries as Imogen Cunningham, Lissette Model, Dorothea Lange, and many others; as well as the highlight of each semester: a field trip to Wildcat Hill in Carmel to visit Edward Weston, complete with a field walk with him out on Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.

Ansel Adams first taught the photography Summer Session in 1945. Minor White joined him teaching in 1946. Philip Hyde started as a student at the same time, but due to an office paperwork error, did not make the list to attend the first full-time class in Fall 1946, but began photography school in the second full-time class in Fall 1947. The Summer Session 1947 featured lectures by both Adams and White. Philip Hyde’s lecture notes begin in the Summer Session 1947. Philip Hyde proved to be one of the most eager students, despite his full personal life.

On June 29, 1947, Philip Hyde married Ardis King in Berkeley. Ardis King’s family was from Sacramento, but her parents owned a house in Berkeley, where she and her brother Clint King lived while attending the University of California Berkeley. Philip and Ardis got to know each other while attending classes at UC Berkeley, where Ardis earned her teaching credential. They took a number of classes together, including a course in Calligraphy and Japanese Painting by the famous Japanese-American artist Chiura Obata. More on these classes and their influence on the Hydes in future blog posts.

Reciprocity Failure Defined

Following Minor White’s lecture on The Technical Aspects of Visualization on August 19, 1947, Ansel Adams came before the class and held forth on Reciprocity Failure for the next two days. Most of the lecture contents were too technical to reproduce here, with many graphs depicting film densities and sensitometry readings.

Reciprocity failure oversimplified, results in the failure of film to show accurate and unflawed detail in shadows. While the subject may seem dry in some ways, it is an important concept in straight photography where the values of clarity, sharpness and clean rendering without artifacts and film noise are considered of utmost importance. Many photographers today in the digital age don’t care about the technical aspects of photography because they don’t need to in order to produce high fidelity photography. Camera technology today, if used according to the manual and a few simple rules and guidelines, does much of the work automatically, when the correct settings are chosen. However, with large format film cameras, everything had to be done manually. Ansel Adams was a stickler for all technical aspects of photography and developing a solid base of knowledge and aptitude in his students. The results speak for themselves, evident in his negatives and black and white prints, as well as the negatives and fine art prints of his students. It is precisely because of their perfection that Ansel Adams prints are some of the most sought after by collectors and considered some of the most valuable in the history of the medium.

Whether you’re using a lower speed film in daylight, trying to maximize your depth of field in a landscape, or just setting up the camera for an exposure at night, sooner or later you’re going to start pushing the limits of your film’s light gathering ability. As light becomes more scarce, the silver halide grains residing in your film will be less uniformly struck by photons, causing a steep drop in density after a few seconds of needed exposure. This exponentially diminishing response to low light levels is more popularly known as a film’s reciprocity failure.

The Film Photography Project goes on to give examples of how different films exhibit reciprocity failure. For example, with black and white film, exposures of one or two seconds or longer will result in reduced density, that is, thin or non-existent shadow detail. With color negative film, exposures over 20 seconds cause color-shifting as different color dye layers in the film absorb light at different rates during prolonged exposure. With color slide film, exposures over five seconds result in color shifts similar to color negative film, while high color saturation slide films such as Fuji Velvia color shift to an even greater degree than lower color density films.

Ansel Adams’ two-day lecture on reciprocity failure gave his students the tools to avoid reciprocity failure. Some of the technical terms and information implies previous knowledge from earlier lectures of various photographic subjects such as the Zone System. Stay tuned for a simple explanation of the Zone System in future posts in this series. These notes are presented primarily for the historical record.

Philip Hyde’s Lecture Notes, August 19, 1947

Reciprocity failure—inertia of film in low intensity light—film doesn’t respond to slight illumination.

Visualization and light metering—Use a long tube for the light meter to explore light readings of distant objects.

A Wratten 90 filter (tan color) for viewing—neutralizes color

Example: Greens on Kodak Verichrome Pan film drop nearly a full zone in value due to lack of green sensitivity.

All measurements for density should be above film base plus fog.

[Film base plus fog refers to the inherent density of any film before exposure. It consists of the film base plus any fog that has accumulated on the film due to subtle light exposure in handling]

For the sake of measurement and calculations, film base plus fog should not be less than 0.1 in density.

Pre-Exposure Exercise

Expose a white card for Zone II or Zone I depending on amount of exposure added. Then expose the scene normally. The units added will equal the numeric relation between zones. That is:

My impressions from this lecture and other sources, as well as my own experiences, leads me to believe that it was complicated to make good photographs with large format film cameras. When photographers take for granted how easy photography is now, I often think of my father, Philip Hyde’s notes and his early training with Ansel Adams. What are your thoughts?

Original Proposed Article Title: Minor White, Philip Hyde and His Schoolmates on The Art Of Seeing

My four page feature article in this month’s print issue of Outdoor Photographer magazine, delineating how to more effectively harness the creative mind, bond with the natural world and make more sensitive imagery, has stirred up significant buzz and even a touch of controversy. See the examples below. For more on my writing background see, “About David Leland Hyde.”

A very big thank you to all those who have commented on Twitter, sent me e-mail and otherwise showed signs of enjoying the article. Here is some of the feedback, including some by today’s who’s who in nature and landscape photography:

Indeed a wonderful article. Deep and inspirational. I am so glad that Outdoor Photographer published it, most of all for them, since articles like these raise publications of photography to another level. Well done. – Rafael Rojas

I really enjoyed this article – if only all photography writing was as good. – Tim Parkin

In my own photography journey I noticed an incredible improvement in both my images, and my happiness, when I started doing my twilight photography. Those images required me to commit to a single composition for the entire evening, and as a result I spent a lot more time looking, observing, and fine-tuning. I got into that “zone.” Eventually I started taking that approach more for many of my images. Slowing down like that is harder in the digital world, but David makes a very compelling case for it, and hopefully it will inspire some photographers to try it out. — Floris van Breugel

In this current world of quick, fast and overly saturated photography, David shows us how to slow down and “smell the roses” to make meaningful images through the historical approaches of masters like his father, Minor White and Ansel Adams. – Joseph Kayne

Great article. I would like to see more of these photography-as-art pieces. – Chuck Kimmerle

One of the best articles that Outdoor Photographer has run in a long time. Like Floris and Chuck, I too would rather read articles that educate and inspire like David’s rather than another “Best Winter Hotspots” or “DOF De-Mystified.” The qualities that made Galen Rowell’s OP columns so interesting to read back in the day are the same qualities found in David’s article. I think it’s fine to have sensationalist headlines on the cover to sell magazines but inside the magazine should be filled with substantive content. – Richard Wong

A superb article touching on many important points. I’d love to see more like it in print. – Guy Tal

It was a great article (mandatory reading)… Hopefully David’s article will set the magazine on a more educational path. (Ten Secrets/Ten Top Spots has run its course.) Good stuff. – Michael Gordon

Really great article David. Congratulations. It makes me want to go out and take photographs – to feel that ‘in the moment’ feeling. And your Dad’s photograph of “White Domes, Valley of Fire” is just especially sublime. The kind of photograph I can contemplate for a very long time. – Eric Fredine

Excellent! Very refreshing to see an article about being in the moment, instead of “getting the shot.” — Lori Kincaid

Must read. Wonderful Piece. If you haven’t already you should read this article by David Leland Hyde. — Rob Tiley

Great article on mindfulness when making photos. I found myself slowing down just from the rhythm of the words. — Nancy E. Presser

REALLY great piece! Terrific history lesson, too. — Robin Black

One of the best articles in Outdoor Photographer magazine in a while. — QT Luong

Loved hearing about David’s experiences with his father in this month’s isssue of Outdoor Photographer. — Russ Bishop

Great Read! David’sopening photo, of tall grasses lit by the sun next to a stream, is exquisite. The kind of image that instantly brings peace to the viewer. — Bret Edge

I haven’t subscribed to Outdoor Photographer for many years and more articles like this would make it more tempting to read more often. For the past year I have been trying to slow down and not force the issue, letting the images reveal themselves rather than actively hunting. Freeman Patterson’s Photography and the Art of Seeing was the first photography book I ever bought and it may be time to pull it off of the shelf for another reading. Thanks for the reminder. – David Chauvin

Fantastic read! Congratulations!! Hope you and Outdoor Photographer do more of these types of articles. – Colleen Miniuk-Sperry

About time there’s more than just the latest equipment review and how it will make you like Ansel Adams. If someone wants to create a great photograph, the process begins with clarity of vision and ends with well-crafted execution of the image. The equipment is just the tools of the trade and worthless without the vision and craft. Edward Weston didn’t have great equipment, but brought to fruition through great vision and exquisite craft. Ansel had the best equipment and a great vision. Philip Hyde likewise. Many of today’s “photographers” have the best equipment and tools the world has yet imagined. However most lack a clear vision and many of those are clueless as to the craft. Instead, they rely upon the crutch of technology and gimmicks contained in their iPhones and plug-ins on their editing software. Still others offer excuses for their lack of vision and craft and reliance upon funky effects. No matter how eloquently you explain the image, “I worked so hard…” underneath it all, a polished turd smells the same. Your article is a good start to get the ball rolling to a higher plane. Keep it going… — Larry Angier

What a refreshing article! First I have to say how happy I am to see such a wonderful piece of writing. It is long overdue. David Leland Hyde gives us a glimpse into the true meaning of the photographic vision. Learning how to see, not just with our eyes and camera, but with our soul. Getting in tune with the environment we’re in while out in the field, taking our time, and planning. In this day and time we see so much about gear and equipment, and so little about photographic substance. I hope that there will be more articles like this in the future. — Rachel Cohen

Absolutely loved the piece in Outdoor Photographer. It’s rare to see something of useful value in the rags these days. Great insight into the minds of very gifted photographers. You gave some very good information on creativity, lacking in most magazines recently. — Ed Cooley

Excellent article! I think David hit a rich vein of subject matter both personally and for the photography community. The ideas in the article need to be shared and become a bigger part of the discussion in photography (and life in general). The pixel peepers, the camera companies, the low hanging fruit photo tours, etc, have all hogged the mike for too long. Sing it out brother David! It will be interesting to see the reaction you get from the article. The quiet approach and the process of slowing down the feverish mental activity scare many. There’s no hiding from the truth in such a state. It’s a lot easier to be go go go because then there’s no time for the big questions. I enjoyed reading about White’s blank mind and the receptive place of readiness in the creation of a photograph. The very first book on photography I read was Freeman Patterson’s Photography and the Art of Seeing. I pull it off the bookshelf and read it every so often because I need to be reminded of one of the first ideas Patterson shares in the book – letting go of self is an essential precondition of real seeing. I’m not a big fan of pre-planning images because I feel too much organization and control results in self as an obstruction in the creative process. It’s my experience that my images which are too pre-conceived, while they may achieve a good technical level, lack soul. I don’t achieve a feeling of transcendence in their creation and viewers don’t respond in a very strong emotional way either. I totally agree with Stan Zrnich – “the process is about getting out of my own way and quieting the ego.” Too much desire to control maybe doesn’t result so much in the Art of Seeing as the Art of Ego. – Peter Carroll

Please write me in the Contact Form above, by e-mail or comment here and let me know your reactions, ideas, critiques or any other response you have to the article…

Smith Andersen North and Mumm Napa Gallery are pleased to presentThe Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-1955, featuring the work of over 30 artists who emerged from the first 10 years of the photography program founded by Ansel Adams and led by Minor White. The program was the first in the nation to teach creative photography as a profession.

Minor White became the primary influence on the development of the new department after he replaced Ansel Adams as director in 1946. The school’s guest instructors were among the most influential figures in photography, including Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, and Lisette Model.

The department gave rise to photographers who became important contributors to visual culture and whose work was shown in important exhibits, such as The Family of Man (MoMA, 1955, New York and international venues) and Perceptions (San Francisco Museum of Art, 1954). Among the artists were Rose Mandel, William Heick, Pat Harris, Bob Hollingsworth, C. Cameron Macauley, Ira Latour, Benjamen Chinn, Gerald Ratto, David Johnson, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Pirkle Jones, Philip Hyde, and John Upton; the last three of whom had significant publishing careers. Many of them were prominently featured in Aperture magazine, in the early years while Minor White was the editor, and Philip Hyde was exhibited in the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The California School of Fine Arts was renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961, and the school continues to train and develop world-renowned artists.

The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts 1945-1955 Mumm Napa Gallery exhibit consists of almost 100 prints, many of which have not been shown before. We look forward to seeing you at Mumm Napa.

Mumm Napa

8445 Silverado Trail

Rutherford, California.

For more information and directions to the exhibit visit < Mumm Napa > .

Son Hand Prints New Silver Gelatin Black And White Prints From Philip Hyde’s Original Negatives

Granite, Hemlock Tree, High Sierra Near Matterhorn Canyon, Yosemite National Park, California, copyright 1950 Philip Hyde. One of those darkroom printed in 2014 by David Leland Hyde and Stefan Kirkeby.

In October 2013 and January 2014, David Leland Hyde and Stefan Kirkeby darkroom hand printed brand new contemporary silver gelatin prints from Philip Hyde’s best vintage original negatives of Alaska, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, the Redwoods and Point Reyes. In October Hyde and Kirkeby printed 10 images for a total of 62 contemporary prints and in January they printed six images for a total of 28 prints.

In most cases, the vintage prints of these particular negatives are nearly or all sold out. More importantly, with these new prints, the public can obtain darkroom prints in the same tradition that Philip Hyde made his own, with much less outlay. The black and white estate prints made by Imogen Cunningham’s heirs are valued at $2,500 and the contemporary black and white prints of images by one of Philip Hyde’s classmates, William Heick, are priced at $1,800. The contemporary darkroom prints of Philip Hyde’s top black and white photographs are valued at only $1500. As soon as the new silver prints begin to sell in any one image, the subsequent prints will go up to $1,800.

“We made these darkroom prints in collaboration to maintain coherence between the new and old silver gelatin prints, “ explained Stefan Kirkeby. “Making prints in the darkroom like this carries on the legacy of all the early darkroom printers. We do it out of respect for the medium.”

Stefan Kirkeby has helped other black and white photographers make new silver gelatin prints including Golden Decade photographers Stan Zrnich, David Johnson, William Heick and the heirs of Don Whyte, Benjamen Chinn and many others.

“We used Ilford warm tone fiber-based paper,” Stefan Kirkeby said. “It contains the most silver of all Ilford papers. That’s why the prints have such beautiful warm tone blacks like Philip Hyde’s prints from the 1940s and 1950s.” At Stefan’s darkroom in San Rafael, we used a Durst Laborata 1200 for the 2 ¼ and 4×5 negatives. We also made some contact prints from two of Philip Hyde’s early 8×10 negatives: “Looking Down Merced River At El Capitan” and “Aspens, Conway Summit” that appeared in This Is The American Earth, the first book in the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall. For the 5×7 negatives we rented a darkroom at Rayco in San Francisco where they had a Durst 8×10 Enlarger with a 5×7 easel.

“Philip Hyde did a lot of work and did not get enough recognition,” Stefan Kirkeby said. “So many people are using the parks without knowing that he helped protect those lands with his photography. We are printing and sharing his photographs out of respect for his hard work.”

L. A. Mart

1933 Broadway

Los Angeles, California 90007

January 16 – 19, 2014

Stocking, copyright Daido Moriyama. Used by permission of Smith Andersen North Gallery.

In keeping with the increasing significance of Los Angeles in the international art market, Photo L. A. 2014 has relocated to the historic L. A. Mart in downtown Los Angeles. Photo L. A. is the longest running art fair West of New York. Photo L. A. organizers are expecting photography galleries and participants from all over the world and the West Coast in particular. The City of Los Angeles will host three major art shows the same weekend. The L. A. Art Show will be held at the L. A. Convention Center January 15-19 and Classic Photographs Los Angeles 2014 will grace Bonham’s on Sunset Boulevard on Janauary 18 and 19.

Photo L. A. will offer participants the opportunity to visit the booths of 54 gallery exhibitors, 11 non-profit organizations, six installations and five art schools. In Booth 308, near the main entrance, Smith Andersen North Gallery of San Anselmo, Marin County, California, will show some of the most sought after photography on the market today. Stefan Kirkeby, proprietor of Smith Andersen North said his gallery will be one of the few galleries exhibiting at Photo L. A. with a primary focus on California and West Coast photographers. However, Smith Andersen North will also show the world-famous Japanese street photographer Diado Moriyama, known for depicting the breakdown of traditional values in post World War II Japan.

Kirkeby also said that Smith Andersen North is one of the few Galleries publishing and producing copper plate photogravure prints. Smith Andersen North Lab produces photogravures of the photographs of Daido Moriyama and Malick Sidibé, an African black and white photographer most noted for his portraits of 1960s popular culture in Africa’s fastest growing city, Bamako, Mali.

Stefan Kirkeby is possibly most acclaimed for his custom wood framing and installations at many of California’s major museums including the recent Fisher Collection expansion at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Kirkeby also specializes in the development of the photography from the first ten years of Ansel Adams’ photography department at the California School of Fine Art, now the San Francisco Art Institute. This first ten years of the world’s first photography school to teach creative photography as a profession, when Minor White was lead instructor with guest lecturers Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Lisette Model and others, is now called the Golden Decade. The first contemporary group show of Golden Decade photographers at Smith Andersen North enjoyed a turnout of over 500 patrons. To read more about this see the blog post, “Over 500 People Attend Golden Decade Opening.” For more history and background on the Golden Decade, see the blog post, “The Golden Decade: Photography At The California School Of Fine Arts.”

The centerpiece of the Smith Andersen North booth at Photo L. A. will feature Golden Decade photographers, particularly Philip Hyde, Benjamen Chinn and Paul Caponigro. Kirkeby said, “I chose to show Philip Hyde at Photo L. A. to support the upcoming Philip Hyde show at Smith Andersen North. We just finished a show with Paul Caponigro and have exhibited not long ago Benjamin Chinn as well.” One of the hottest contemporary artists today is Klea McKenna, who will also be featured at Photo L. A.. McKenna is a San Francisco based experimental photographer.

Tickets to Photo L. A. are $20.00 for one day and $30.00 for the weekend. Any Landscape Photography Blogger reader who would like a complimentary ticket to the show, please contact Smith Andersen North Gallery at 415-455-9733 and tell them David Leland Hyde sent you. They will contact Stefan Kirkeby at the show and he will put you on the Will Call List for a free one day pass.